March 29, 2009
Jim Merritt
Chair, Ontario Drinking Water Advisory Council
40 St. Clair Avenue West, 3rd Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4V 1M2
Dear Mr. Merritt,
The Tritium Awareness Project (TAP) is a voluntary collaborative initiative aimed at bringing attention to the hazards of tritium exposure in Canada. TAP is a new organization, formed in January 2009, and is supported by a growing number of individuals and NGO’s. The TAP advisory board members bring years of experience and professional expertise to this educational effort. We invite you to visit the TAP website at www.tapcanada.org for more information about this initiative.
TAP supports the important work to date by the ODWAC to review the Ontario drinking water standard for tritium. This review has the potential to make a major contribution to reducing the tritium hazard in Ontario. Read more…
In his recent letter to Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission on behalf of the Tritium Awareness Project, Dr. Gordon Edwards points out that the CNSC should remove from its web site this statement:
Radiation doses of 100 mSv [millisieverts] and more have shown increases in cancer incidence but there is no evidence of health effects at doses below about 100 mSv.
Frequently Asked Questions : Tritium
http://www.cnscccsn.gc.ca/eng/readingroom/factsheets/tritium_studies_faq.cfm
In his letter to CNSC President Michael Binder, Dr. Edwards says “The statement is scientifically incorrect and misleading. It suggests that a safe threshold of radiation exposure exists – a conclusion at odds with the widespread scientific consensus as found in many documents published by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the US National Research Council (NRC), and the International Commission for Radiological Protection (ICRP).
Gordon Edwards has written to CNSC President Michael Binder to point out CNSC failure to provide accurate, scientific information to the public about tritium. The letter challenges Mr. Binder to remove inaccurate statements from the CNSC website and urges an end to CNSC-sanctioned tritium dumping in the Ottawa River.
Here is an excerpt from the TAP letter:
“On behalf of the Tritium Awareness Project, I urge the CNSC to discontinue the practice of allowing AECL to dilute and release tritium-contaminated water into the Ottawa River. This practice is unjustified, as it does no good and only harms the population that drinks the water.
Regulatory limits must not be regarded as a license to pollute.”
For the complete letter, continue reading: Read more…
This letter was submitted to the Ottawa Citizen today by Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.
Putting radioactive materials in people’s drinking water is not wise, no matter what current regulations say.
Medical doctors do not recommend that people “smoke in moderation”. They tell them to stop smoking altogether.
Restaurants are not asked to oversee a permissible level of second-hand smoke. They are ordered by law to disallow it altogether.
The reason is that cigarette smoke is cancer causing. There is no scientifically accepted safe level of exposure to any known carcinogen. That goes for radioactive materials as well as for non-radioactive ones.
For the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to say that deliberately dumping eighteen trillion becquerels of tritium into the Ottawa River is “of no concern” and “perfectly safe” is not only scientifically wrong, but it is contrary to that organization’s legal mandate to protect the public health and to disseminate objective scientific information.
It is deeply distressing to see how the polluter (AECL) and the regulator (CNSC) join forces to obscure the facts and to provide unscientific reassurances of safety to the public and to their elected representatives.
Gordon Edwards, Ph.D., President,
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
Letter to Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources Canada- expressing disappointment about the fact that she did not recieve accurate information about tritium leaks and health impacts.
Read more…
Letter to Bill Pilkington, president of Atomic Energy of Canada, asking for information about quantities of tritium released to the Ottawa River
Read more…
Letter to Michael Binder, President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission- asking for information about quantities of tritium released to the Ottawa River
Read more…